First work on the assembler tutorial

example_projects.md

@@ -1,8 +1,9 @@
 ## The first program
 
 A simple example would be to print all $2^{16}$ possible colors to the screen.
-We make our lives easier, by mapping each index of the screen-buffer to the color which is encoded with the index.
+We make our lives easier, by mapping each index of the screen-buffer to the
-Here, we use the names of the opcodes instead of their numbers.
+color which is encoded with the index. Here, we use the names of the opcodes
+instead of their numbers.
 
 ```
 Set 501 1 0       // Write the value 1 to address 501
@@ -15,7 +16,9 @@ Skip 0 4 503      // Unless we are at the max number, go back 4 instructions
 Sync 0 0 0        // Sync 
 GoTo 0 0 0        // Repeat to keep the window open
 ```
-We could rely on the fact that the value at index 500 starts at zero and we did not have to initialize it.
+
+We could rely on the fact that the value at index 500 starts at zero and we did
+not have to initialize it.
 
 To build a program that we can execute, we could use python:
 
@@ -35,6 +38,7 @@ with open("all_colors.svc16", "wb") as f:
 ```
 
 Inspecting the file, we should see:
+
 ```ansi
 ➜ hexyl examples/all_colors.svc16 -pv --panels 1
 
@@ -53,3 +57,96 @@ When we run this, we get the following output:
 
 ![All colors](specification/colors_scaled.png)
 
+## Designing a simple assembly language
+
+If we want to compile the program from the beginning, all we have to do is to
+replace `Set`, `Add`, `Print` etc. with their corresponding numbers. If we then
+make our python script into a command line program that reads in this code, does
+the replacement and produces the binary output, we already have our first
+assembler.
+
+### Adding variables
+
+Not having to remember the opcodes is an improvement, but we still have to
+manually decide which memory address holds which value. This can be automated
+relatively easily.
+
+First, we need to identify variables. This can be easily done with the criterion
+that they start with a letter and are not an instruction.
+
+We need to know the first memory address that is not used for instructions.
+Right now, this is very easily done since every line of our program takes up
+four values in memory. The first variable name we see gets replaced with the
+first free address. For all the following ones we check if the variable was
+assigned before. If it was, we reuse that address, and if not, we reserve a new
+one.
+
+Our program can now look like this:
+
+```
+Set one 1 0       
+Set max_value 65535 0   
+Print color color 0   
+Add color one color   
+...
+
+```
+
+This is already much easier to understand.
+
+### Adding constants
+
+In the first line of that example we assigned the value 1 to a variable called
+"one". This is a little catastrophe. In order to get the value 1 into our
+program, we needed to run an instruction at runtime and take up 5 addresses (4
+for the instruction, one for the value).
+
+We want to write the values of constants into our binary directly. The program
+could look like this:
+
+```
+Print color color 0   
+Add color "1" color   
+...
+
+```
+
+The way this is resolved is very similar to the way the variables are assigned.
+We replace every new constant with the next free address and every reappearing
+constant with its known address. The only difference is that we have to write
+the values of the constant to their addresses as well.
+
+It would be best to change the ordering of variables and constants. The
+addresses for constants already hold a value when the program starts and the
+addresses for variables do not. We should put the variables at the end, so the
+binary file does not contain a bunch of zeros.
+
+### Simple replacements
+
+This is a good time to invent some new instructions which are expanded to the
+known ones. For now, they should have a one to one mapping, meaning that each
+instruction is replaced by exactly one new one. We can, however, have
+instructions with fewer arguments. Examples would be:
+
+```
+incr variable -> Add variable "1" variable
+negate variable -> Xor variable "1" variable
+jump location condition  -> GoTo "0" location condition // where location is not a variable
+
+```
+
+### Labels
+
+As it stands, we still have to count or remember line numbers for the `Skip` and
+`GoTo` instructions. One simple Idea would be to allow a label (or multiple) for
+each line.
+
+```
+Print color color 0  <start>
+Incr color    
+Cmp color "65535" condition   
+negate condition
+jump @start condition   
+Sync 0 0 0        
+jump @start "0"       
+```